A theoretically based approach to cognitive readiness and situation awareness assessment

Abstract

Determining if military or civilian personnel are cognitively ready to perform their jobs poses a considerable challenge to the research community both in terms of understanding what is meant by being cognitively ready and in terms of developing methods to actually assess it. Accordingly, as part of a government-sponsored research program, we set out to gain a better understanding of what is meant by being cognitively ready for military medical combat teams as well as develop a tool for assessing 12 essential factors underlying cognitive readiness. In this chapter, we present the theoretical foundation that guided our research project, highlighting the multidimensional nature of the cognitive readiness construct and focusing more specifically on one important element of cognitive readiness, namely situation awareness. We then describe our approach to assessing cognitive readiness as well as offer recommendations for how to incorporate measures of situation awareness into cognitive readiness assessment. We conclude with implications for future research and development.